Vancouver Island Trip - Day 8

On Friday October 25th, Rob, Brad and I headed back over to Hornby Island.  We got up at our usual time and caught the morning ferry over to the Gulf Islands.  This time there was a different ticket agent working at the BC Ferries terminal and he was much more helpful.  He advised us that we could buy a frequent user card which would save us about 40%.  He also offered us a map of the islands.  Its too bad the woman working the previous two times we crossed wasn't as helpful as we paid about 60 bucks more than we should have...!

Once we got across to Hornby we headed straight over to Ford Cove and got back down onto those eroded sandstone rocks.  This time the tide was low and we pushed on up the beach all the way to Heron Rocks.  This was our original intention the last time we were out here but we just never made it that far.  The rocky beach between Ford Cove and Heron Rocks is actually more photogenic then Heron Rocks itself.  This is large flat area of open rocky beach.  There are several large boulders on the beach, as well as a bit of a headland.  It is scattered with some of the eroded sandstone.  

We spent most of the day in this general area.  A local guy that was out digging clams warned us that there were heavy winds to the south and that the main ferry between Horseshoe Bay and Nanaimo had been shut down.  We were a little skeptical that he was just trying to get us to leave but heeded his advice and took the ferry back to the main island, rather than risk getting stuck out on Hornby if the ferries there had to stop running.  It was a little choppy when we crossed back to Denman, and similar when we crossed from Denman to the main island.  Later we learned that the guy had been correct and some ferry crossings had been cancelled.

When we got back to the house we put our gear away and walked a mile down the road into Courtenay.  We went to a local pub for a couple of beers and something to eat.  This was our only restaurant dinner of the entire trip.  Later we walked back to the house and visited for a while, played guitar some more, and eventually turned in.  This would be the end of our exploring and photography as the next morning we had to hit the road for home.